Perhaps it is fitting that on the day Western Sydney Wanderers can clinch a place in the A-League Men finals, Tony Popovic will be in the opposition dugout. The now-Melbourne Victory boss was the last to coach the Wanderers to the playoffs, with his exit for Turkish Süper Lig club Karabükspor ahead of the 2017–18 season ushering in a half-decade in the wilderness.
Now, though, half a decade on, Marko Rudan looks set to finally break that streak and lead the Red and Black to the playoffs. But before he can do that, he will need to vanquish a ghost from his side’s past: Saturday evening’s contest between Western Sydney and Victory, beyond its clinching properties, capable of both keeping the former’s faint hopes of a top-two finish alive and, once and for all, ending the latter’s hopes of finals football.
Held to a frustrating 0-0 draw with Perth Glory on Sunday afternoon – denied a late penalty that Popovic says the club has requested an explanation for but still not received any word on – Victory’s long existentially threatened season is once again on the brink this weekend: a loss to Western Sydney, combined with a Sydney FC win and point to Wellington Phoenix, mathematically ending their hopes of finals football.
A win, conversely, would be enough to guarantee Rudan’s side finals football for the first time since the 2016-17 ALM campaign — Sydney’s meeting with Perth meaning that whomever sat seventh at the end of the round couldn’t catch them — and keep their faint hopes of a top-two finish and the associated week off in the first week of the playoffs alive for at least another week.
In his first full season in charge, Rudan has turned the Wanderers into arguably the toughest team to beat in the ALM in 2022-23: no side conceding fewer goals than the Red and Black this season and only Melbourne City and Adelaide United tasting defeat less.
Just two wins in their last five games, however, including a 3-2 loss to Adelaide that dulled some of the excitement of a 4-0 Sydney Derby win the week prior and gave the Reds the ascendency in the race for finals seeding, have the Wanderers needing maximum points against Victory heading into their penultimate home game of the regular season.
Even if unable to overhaul Adelaide, leapfrogging Central Coast and into third position on the ALM table would at least guarantee them a meeting with the sixth-placed finisher in the first week of the league’s end-of-season knockouts.
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“We have to continue on from the performance [against Glory],” said Popovic. “The performance from our third game in eight days and considering our situation and the injuries we’ve had I thought it was a fantastic display. We just missed the goal, the decisive goal to take the three points.
“The Wanderers are having a very good year. Mark’s doing a fantastic job there and the club will play finals for the first time in a long time. So, I’m pleased for the football club and pleased for Mark. We know it will be tough but the way we’re playing at the moment, we certainly feel we’ll give them a very difficult match and it’s one we feel we can win.”
One of Popovic and his side’s key tasks will be marshalling the play of Wanderers’ attacker Brandon Borrello, who has proven to be one of the signings of the season in his first year in Sydney’s west after arriving from Dynamo Dresden.
With his brace against Macarthur last week salvaging a 2-2 draw for his side, the 27-year-old has now hit double-digit goals in a single season for the first time in his career in 2022-23, adding three assists alongside that bounty for good measure. In addition, the in-form attacker recently scored his maiden Socceroos goal in a 3-2 loss to Ecuador in a friendly at Marvel Stadium after being called back into the team for the first time since 2021.
“It has to be a collective [effort],” Popovic said when asked about Borrello. “The good players will always have their moment in their match and they have some very good personnel in the front third.
“They will obviously be very keen to win after their last couple of results. But that’s a collective effort for us. We understand they’re having a very good year. We recently, certainly in the second half of the year, are playing a lot better, a lot more consistent, a lot more good performances, we’re competing with everyone.
“I’m sure we’ll do that again on Saturday. If we can add goals to the performance that we had against Perth, we can come away with a win, that’s for sure.”
Popovic said that he expected defender Damien Da Silva to be “fine” and travel to Sydney after he suffered an ankle knock in the dying stages of the Glory game, but Jason Geria was still touch-and-go with a hip injury – any soreness in Victory’s final training session likely to rule him out of travelling.
Though now back training in a limited capacity, young defender Matt Bozinovski has yet to complete a full session with the main squad and is doubtful for the rest of the regular season.
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Header Image Credit: The AFC
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